[Cdn-DMCA] TPM and the End User

[Russell McOrmond]

On Sat, 6 Apr 2002, Jason Young wrote:

> If you back up your position with plenty of solid, rational evidence 
> - which we have in spades -, it should speak for itself. One thing 
> that has struck me about the position of the MPAA/RIAA/Harry Fox 
> crowd is that they frequently speak out of their asses and think 
> nobody's going to notice.

  With this in mind, can you explain the passing of the DMCA in the USA,
and even the introduction of the CBDTA?


  It isn't a matter of "nobody" noticing, but the right people noticing.  
We have some extremely bright people in this list.  I am extremely
thankful that some of the old-hats like yourself are involved in this
discussion.


  I believe the government representatives and bureaucrats are
intelligent, but the fact that the discussion has come so far indicates to
me that too many politicians/negotiators/etc are listening to the economic
special interests rather than less biased and more informed people such as
we have here.


  A big part of the problem has been to try to get discussions started
with some of the right people.  It may that we will have a much better
chance to help set good public policy in Canada than the USA has.  I have
been very hopeful with some of the more informal meetings that have
happened (IE: past invitation to Heritage, and yesterday an invitation for
an informal discussion with some folks at Industry).

  I do hope others are trying to do the same thing and make connections
with politicians and bureaucrats.




  There are those who think the position is coming from the wrong angle,
but I believe that starting the conversation with "places we cannot go" is
appropriate. With these extremes out of the way, then appropriate
discussions can have to discuss various perceived and real problems that
changes in ICT have brought to the foreground.



IE:  USA-style TPM is not appropriate.  Heading that direction is
inappropriate as it is impossible to please the media industry on this
issue without creating a police state.  The same with the technological
aspects of RMI.

  RMI needs to be a standards-based digital encoding of a license
agreement.  An end-user removing the RMI needs to be no more of a crime
than someone loosing the paper copy of their license agreement.  Things
such as "You may watch this only once" or "this will self destruct on
April 11"  need to be thought of as advisory as they would be on paper,
and not be allowed to involve invasions of personal privacy to enforce.



  Once we get these inappropriate suggestions off the table, we can then
have a reasonable discussion of modern ICT-enhanced/aware business models
to fund research, arts, entertainment, etc.  With these extremist ideas on
the table, reasonable discussion is simply not going to be
probable/possible.


> Jason
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